Making No Excuses

Wheelchair doesn't stop man from living

Posted: Saturday, June 25, 2005

By Wayne Fordwayne.ford@onlineathens.com

n the morning of Feb. 20, 1997, Richard Walley, a robust young man with a promising career at Classic City Gardens, was headed to work on his motorcycle along Robert Hardeman Road in Winterville when the lights went out.

Almost two weeks later, he awoke from a coma. The bones in his body were broken, his face disfigured and vertebrae shattered. But his mangled body had somehow escaped the call of death.

Today, Walley sits in a wheelchair inside his comfortable and conspicuously neat home in the Oglethorpe countryside. He hasn't walked since that day eight years ago when a car pulled into the roadway and struck his motorcycle.

"I don't remember anything," Walley said as his dog, Mollie, sat at his side and his cat, Cheeto, sought out a soft place on the sofa.

But that day forever changed his life.

And the story of how his faith in God, the goodwill of his friends and community and his own gutsy determination helped to overcome his handicap has inspired others.

Before the injuries, Walley stood 6 feet, 4 inches tall, and at 230 pounds, he had the physique of a man who worked out daily. He didn't smoke or drink.

After graduating Cedar Shoals High School in 1986, he spent three years in the U.S. Army for which he became a tank commander. As a residential manager at Classic City, he worked 160 accounts. He was a detail-oriented supervisor who wouldn't let his crew smoke on the job. His employees had to tuck in their shirts and if they had long hair, it had to be put up.

As he was riding to work on his motorcycle about 7:40 a.m. that morning eight years ago, a Ford Tempo pulled out of Providence Village Mobile Home Park and the two collided.

"I was thrown 70 feet and I bounced four or five times. I slid about 30 feet," he said, recounting what he has learned about the collision. Children waiting for a school bus were shocked by the scene.

And as for the man driving the car, "He never walked over to see if I was alive," Walley said.

Walley has never seen nor heard from the man.

"I've got four (metal) plates and 16 screws in my face. This is wire mesh that comes around this area," he said, his fingers running across the right side of his face. "It fractured both legs. They were going to amputate my hand - punctured both lungs, shattered all the ribs on this side and shattered a vertebra." And his skull was cracked.

When his mother, Barbara Jones, arrived at the hospital, she had no inkling of the seriousness of the injuries.

"Mama came out and he (the doctor) started talking about head trauma and stuff and she said, 'No, in English. How is my son?' and he said, 'He's going to die. There's nothing we can do.' "

Jones insisted on seeing her son and the nurses warned her to be prepared for what she would see.

"She walked in the door and when she first saw me, she thought I was going to die," said Walley, who heard this from his mother.

"She said, 'Son, this is Mama. If you can hear me, squeeze my hand.' She said I squeezed her hand and she knew right then I was going to be fine," he said.

Walley came out of the coma in two weeks. He remained hospitalized for four months, after which he lived with his mother and stepfather, Tommy Jones, for an additional two months.

"When I was in the hospital, I pushed myself through therapy and I never complained. I was in a lot of pain and a lot of those times I don't remember," he said.

Then he was able to return to his rural home to begin life as a man who could not walk. He remembers that first night when he was alone for the first time since he was injured. No longer were nurses moving in and out of the room. No longer was his mother tending to his needs.

"I sat right there in the middle of the floor," Walley said, his eyes focused on the floor.

He remembers opening his Bible and beginning to pray.

"There was a sense of relief for me. The hardest pain was over," he said. "I bet I sat there for about 30 minutes and then you make a decision like, 'All right man, it's your life. What are you going to do with it?' I said, 'This is it. You've got to do it.' "

Walley said he has been focused on making his life as independent as possible.

"When something like this happens, you can cry or complain or move on. ... These are the cards dealt to me. This is the life I have now. And I've got to live it, and I'd rather live it than complain about it."

Through the years, Walley said his mother, stepfather, father, stepmother and sisters have been there for him. In addition, the members of his church, Winterville First Baptist, and the people in his Oglethorpe County community always have been there.

"There are people in the community, if I need something, I can just call them and they'll run it out to me," he said. "I've never met a stranger, and being in a wheelchair doesn't bother me about being around people and meeting people."

And while he was in that silent coma clinging to threads of life, his mother was there, talking to her son as though everything was all right. Even the physicians appreciated her presence.

"The doctors said, 'We don't want you to leave because you know when he is in pain, when he's stressed, all those emotions,' and I told her, 'Mama, how did you know all that? I was in a coma.' She grabbed my hand and said, 'I'm your Mama.'